Miss Annabella Scott

Miss Hortensia Primm

Lola

Miss Wilhelmina Rowbottom

Mr Ralph Montcalm

Mr. Crottin de Chavignol

Dr. Ephemera Wirefly

Professor Andrew McMinn

Lady Copperhead

Charlie Boggs

Vix Indigo

Francesca Hindenburg

Mr Mordecai Watson

Miss Emily Lockhart

Ihaka Tangaroa

Lord Edward Pearse

Sir JJ Drinkwater

the mysterious journal

The Quest...

If you are reading this, you may well be aware of the secrets within secrets. Or perhaps you have stumbled upon this journal by accident. In either case, you are part of the story now. Step a little closer.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Casting Call

The Quest for the Golden Prim is seeking CHARACTERS who are hungry for fame, fortune, and possibly terrifying danger around every corner.

interested in plurking, tweeting, and blogging your character's backstory for even greater fame and danger

and desirous of wearing fantastic gowns and/or performing daring deeds while vying for fame, fortune, and the secret of the golden prim,

Look No Further.

What is The Quest for the Golden Prim?The Quest is a new web comic, appearing firstly in the pages of The Primgraph magazine, and also on the dedicated web-site: http://goldenprim.blogspot.com/

The individual frames are created in Second Life, edited in Photoshop, and then published. This gives a rich and detailed look to the web comic - and is great fun to create!

The idea is to appeal initially to the denizens of Second Life (particularly the vintage and steampunk regions), but also to a wider web community who may enjoy steampunk and gaslamp fantasy, or even just web comics!

There is an adventurous and amusing story arc planned which will unfold over the coming months, as the characters embark on The Quest for the Golden Prim!

What playing a part will involve:As a character, you may be called upon to take part in a photoshoot once every six weeks. This should not be too onerous - it will probably last about two hours. And you may not be called for each and every episode.

An equally important role is promotion.

What we do want our chosen cast to do is to help build the webcomic through their activities. We would like our characters to build up a background and to support and drive on-going interest through a wide use of web tools. We will be expecting our characters to contribute to the main blog on a regular basis, following guidelines that we will agree together (i.e. we might decide that the character is likely to keep a journal, to write letters (or postcards) to a friend, or might prefer to contribute in the form of extracts from newspaper articles). We'll also expect you to create Twitter and Plurk accounts in the persona of your characters, and, if you wish, develop other social networking tools too.

We are hoping that our characters (and our cast) will become well-known - through your activities.

But we also want to make it clear that, by and large, we will be asking you to play characters. This means they will have a different name from your main avatar (who will, nevertheless, be credited for the role). Think of yourself as an actor appearing in a science fiction series on television. We want you to be associated with the role, but for the role to be separate from you. And like actors in a TV series, you may be asked, from time to time, to give interviews as yourselves to the Press, whether written or podcast, or inworld TV (the personal appearances at fan conventions we see as being some way off).

A few people will be appearing as themselves (such as JJ Drinkwater). These will be minor roles - the people we choose through the auditions will be the stars.

At the moment, there is no financial reward for appearing in the series. If we can monetise the project later, we hope to be able to pay our characters. But that isn't going to happen soon - and people who are looking for paying employment in SL will not find it here. We are, however, hoping that designers will be interested in becoming involved, donating skins, hair, clothes and furniture. This will count as sponsorship of the series, and will lead to them receiving advertising on the blog. It will also mean that our characters will gain free goodies.

One final point - we accept that people may enter projects with the best will and the best intentions, but that real life has a nasty habit of intervening. Therefore we will be creating a database, and asking you to provide full details of your avatar appearance so that - in the unlucky eventuality of our having to replace you - we can create a character who looks very similar. Please that this will be the character avatar appearance you assume for the webcomic - we have no desire to re-create your personal avatar! It is, in fact, an argument for your seeing your character avatar as something distinct from your regular appearance.

If you have ANY questions, please feel free to contact Saffia Widdershins or Viv Trafalgar at: the.primgraph@gmail.com

What we need from you:Answers to the following questions:

your primary avatar name

your timezone

your sim-of-residence and/or preferred area of second life

acting or RP experience

contact email

ability of time to contribute to the project

do you desire a major role or a minor role?Do you have a preference a particular role (e.g. hero/heroine/villain/villainess/insouciant tiny)?

experience with plurk, blogger, twitter, people, prims, death and dismemberment

We would like you to write a short piece (250 - 400 words) on one of the following:A background story about your character ORYour reaction to the news that one of your close friends has been killed by mysterious agents of the enemy (perhaps a journal or a letter) ORYour nefarious plans for the heroine, should she fall into your clutches

The expedition to discover the secret will, we envisage, involve other people in addition to the heroine and heroine. You might like to offer an interesting character who would have some reason for being part of (or joining) the expedition. We will certainly have a place for convincing characters with a well-thought-out story to tell. You might wish to offer such a character in addition to an application for a major role. Think: Cliff*

Casting will run from June 22 through June 26th. The deadline for applications is June 21st. You will be notified if you have been successful; the results will be publicly announced at a party to open the new Primgraphh offices on Sunday July 5th.

* John Ratzenberger originally auditioned for the part of Sam on Cheers and it was clear at once that he wasn't getting it. As he was leaving, he suddenly stopped and said, "Hey, do you have a know-it-all in your bar?" "What?" they asked, and Ratzenberger did an improv on the spot of a character who was a store of useless knowlege that he would share at any opportunity (or no opportunity at all). Thus was Cliff born.